What do you think?
Rate this book
Comm Check...: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia
On February 1, 2003, the unthinkable happened. The space shuttle Columbia disintegrated 37 miles above Texas, seven brave astronauts were killed and America's space program, always an eyeblink from disaster, suffered its second catastrophic in-flight failure. Unlike the Challenger disaster 17 years earlier, Columbia's destruction left the nation one failure away from the potential abandonment of human space exploration. Media coverage in the immediate aftermath focused on the possible cause of the disaster, and on the nation's grief. But the full human story, and the shocking details of NASA's crucial mistakes, have never been told -- until now. Based on dozens of exclusive interviews, never-before-published documents and recordings of key meetings obtained by the authors, Comm Check takes the reader inside the conference rooms and offices where NASA's best and brightest managed the nation's multi-billion-dollar shuttle program -- and where they failed to recognize the signs of an impending disaster. It is the story of a space program pushed to the brink of failure by relentless political pressure, shrinking budgets and flawed decision making. The independent investigation into the disaster uncovered why Columbia broke apart in the sky above Texas. Comm Check brings that story to life with the human drama behind the tragedy. Michael Cabbage and William Harwood, two of America's most respected space journalists, are veterans of all but a handful of NASA's 113 shuttle missions. Tapping a network of sources and bringing a combined three decades of experience to bear, the authors provide a rare glimpse into NASA's inner circles, chronicling the agency's most devastating failure and the challenges that face NASA as it struggles to return America to space.
417 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 27, 2004
69 people are currently reading
646 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
May 30, 2024
“[I]nvestigators concluded the [Columbia] module fell intact for 38 seconds after main vehicle breakup, plunging 60,000 feet to an altitude of 26 miles before it began to disintegrate from the combined effects of aerodynamic stress and extreme temperatures. From the debris analysis, investigators believe the module was probably destroyed over a 24-second period beginning at 9:00:58 a.m. During that period, the module fell another 35,000 feet, to an altitude of 19 miles or so. Investigators believe the module began breaking up at the beginning of that window. If any of the astronauts were still alive at that point, death would have been instantaneous, the result of blunt force trauma, including hypersonic wind blast, and lack of oxygen. Pathologists found no evidence of lethal injuries from heat…”
- Michael Cabbage & William Harwood, Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia
Disasters are an unfortunate fact of life. Rare as they are, they are always lurking, a monster created out of probabilities. Most days, everything goes right. Other days, the car goes off the road, the train comes off the rails, the plane falls from the sky, the ship slips beneath the waves, or the shuttle falls to pieces while coming back to earth.
When those things happen, we all stop and pay attention.
Two things draw us to disasters. The first and most obvious is empathy. As humans, we care about what happens to other humans. When something goes horribly wrong, we feel a need to learn about the people involved; stories of heroism and resolve amidst the tragedy gives meaning to something that is otherwise senseless.
The other attraction is analytical. Many accidents can be traced back to human error, rather than force majeure. Linking the missteps, shortcuts, hairline fractures, and faulty judgments attendant to every catastrophe is irresistibly fascinating.
Michael Cabbage and William Harwood’s Comm Check, recounting 2003 breakup of the Space Shuttle Columbia – killing all seven astronauts – is focused on the second of two elements I mentioned above. It is a forensic look at the accident, focused on things like risk identification and management. To the extent it tells a human story, it is one focused not on the astronauts, but on the people on the ground.
***
To be sure, there is a brief biography of the crewmembers – high-achieving, marvelous people, all – but their lives and deaths are not center stage. If you are interested more in the astronauts themselves, CNN’s recent docuseries – Space Shuttle Columbia: The Final Flight – acts as this book’s flipside, focusing on the human dimensions, while skimming the technical aspects.
Anyway, the main reason the crew is side-staged is that they were victims in the truest sense. They had no agency or control over Columbia’s fate. They didn't even know there was a problem (and if they did, they probably wouldn’t have been able to do anything). Moreover, NASA has kept their final moments a close-kept secret, in much the same way they initially did with the Challenger, though it was eventually revealed that the Challenger crew survived the initial failure of the solid rocket booster, only to die on impact with the ocean.
Instead, the two authors spend almost the entire book with NASA engineers and technicians as they try to determine whether Columbia was fatally injured during liftoff.
The heat tiles at issue were located on the underside of Space Shuttle Columbia. Their purpose was to protect the Shuttle – and her crew – as she reentered the Earth at such high speeds that she was literally enveloped in a fireball. When Columbia lifted off, a piece of insulation came loose from the fuel tank and struck the Shuttle. This left it to the people on the ground to determine whether Columbia had been damaged; if so, how badly; and if badly, what could be done.
***
What follows is kind of a bureaucratic thriller, in which working groups of extremely talented, intelligent, and high-functioning individuals get together to hash out the problem before Columbia ran out of air and was forced to reenter the atmosphere.
Battle lines soon formed between lower-level engineers and upper-level NASA management, which is reminiscent of the cartoon Dilbert, but set in from Hell. Damage-prediction software called “Crater” was used to evaluate potential damage to the heat tiles, but those results – showing a real threat to the Shuttle – were downplayed or criticized. Upper NASA management also stymied engineers from making requests to the Department of Defense to have military satellites take pictures of Columbia’s wing. The Director of Missions Operations, for one, believed that if the Columbia was doomed, the crew would be better off not knowing, which is usually the type of ultra-complicated moral decision left to powers higher than “Director of Missions Operations.”
In all, this is the kind of book that should probably be required reading for any entity or organization that deals with risk-management and risk-tolerance.
***
Unfortunately, though, the high-throttle, novelistic, dialogue-laden style has its drawbacks. Chiefly, the authors – unintentionally or not – create false heroes and false villains. No one in NASA planned for Columbia to physically dissemble before our eyes. But when you read the middle portions of Comm Check, you instinctively divide every person into “good” and “bad” categories. The result is that a guy like Rodney Rocha, the division chief for structural engineering, comes across as prophet and hero for instantly recognizing the Shuttle’s mortal danger. Meanwhile, Linda Ham, the chair of the Mission Management Team, comes across as both ignorant and fatalistic: believing that the damage wasn’t serious, but if it was, shrugging her shoulders helplessly.
In real life, things are not nearly so stark, so black and white. The scales are unfairly tipped towards those shouting the warnings, because they’re the ones more likely to provide access to journalists. Later on, in a more sober section of the book, the authors actually seem to agree with the assessment of upper management: that nothing could have been done to save the Columbia. The astronauts were not equipped for a spacewalk and did not have the necessary tools to repair the heat tiles. Unlike Apollo 13, which had less processing power than the smartphone in your pocket, the Space Shuttle could not be MacGyvered. Furthermore, NASA couldn’t very well launch a second Shuttle that might not be safe to fly.
***
Comm Check ends with a final chapter on the future of the Shuttle Program. In 2004, when this book came out, that remained an open issue. Today, of course, it is moot. The Space Shuttle retired in 2011. The program has been relegated to a Toyota commercial, where a pickup truck drags the husk of Endeavor down the road. I’m not sure if that’s a fitting end or not, since the program is more memorable for its lethal failures than its achievements.
The real takeaway from Comm Check’s epilogue is the question of whether we should continue to launch people into space at all. Part of me wants to say no, of course not. At least not funded by the government. Space travel is a first-world luxury, inappropriate during times of slashed budgets and crumbling infrastructure and failing schools. Any space travel should be done with robots and with the sole purpose of ensuring that I continue to receive hundreds of television channels.
Another part of me mourns the idea that we would forgo this last frontier. It is not a rational feeling, based on economic realities. It’s just this sense that we lose something if we don’t continue to explore, and to explore at great risk.
- Michael Cabbage & William Harwood, Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia
Disasters are an unfortunate fact of life. Rare as they are, they are always lurking, a monster created out of probabilities. Most days, everything goes right. Other days, the car goes off the road, the train comes off the rails, the plane falls from the sky, the ship slips beneath the waves, or the shuttle falls to pieces while coming back to earth.
When those things happen, we all stop and pay attention.
Two things draw us to disasters. The first and most obvious is empathy. As humans, we care about what happens to other humans. When something goes horribly wrong, we feel a need to learn about the people involved; stories of heroism and resolve amidst the tragedy gives meaning to something that is otherwise senseless.
The other attraction is analytical. Many accidents can be traced back to human error, rather than force majeure. Linking the missteps, shortcuts, hairline fractures, and faulty judgments attendant to every catastrophe is irresistibly fascinating.
Michael Cabbage and William Harwood’s Comm Check, recounting 2003 breakup of the Space Shuttle Columbia – killing all seven astronauts – is focused on the second of two elements I mentioned above. It is a forensic look at the accident, focused on things like risk identification and management. To the extent it tells a human story, it is one focused not on the astronauts, but on the people on the ground.
***
To be sure, there is a brief biography of the crewmembers – high-achieving, marvelous people, all – but their lives and deaths are not center stage. If you are interested more in the astronauts themselves, CNN’s recent docuseries – Space Shuttle Columbia: The Final Flight – acts as this book’s flipside, focusing on the human dimensions, while skimming the technical aspects.
Anyway, the main reason the crew is side-staged is that they were victims in the truest sense. They had no agency or control over Columbia’s fate. They didn't even know there was a problem (and if they did, they probably wouldn’t have been able to do anything). Moreover, NASA has kept their final moments a close-kept secret, in much the same way they initially did with the Challenger, though it was eventually revealed that the Challenger crew survived the initial failure of the solid rocket booster, only to die on impact with the ocean.
Instead, the two authors spend almost the entire book with NASA engineers and technicians as they try to determine whether Columbia was fatally injured during liftoff.
A large chunk of foam had broken away from somewhere in the bipod area of Columbia’s external fuel tank 81 seconds after launch and smashed into the ship’s left wing near the leading edge, producing a spectacular shower of particles. It was unclear from the images whether the debris cloud contained foam, ice, or bits of Columbia’s heat tiles. Exclamations of “Holy s—t!” and “Oh, my God!” filled the film lab…
The heat tiles at issue were located on the underside of Space Shuttle Columbia. Their purpose was to protect the Shuttle – and her crew – as she reentered the Earth at such high speeds that she was literally enveloped in a fireball. When Columbia lifted off, a piece of insulation came loose from the fuel tank and struck the Shuttle. This left it to the people on the ground to determine whether Columbia had been damaged; if so, how badly; and if badly, what could be done.
***
What follows is kind of a bureaucratic thriller, in which working groups of extremely talented, intelligent, and high-functioning individuals get together to hash out the problem before Columbia ran out of air and was forced to reenter the atmosphere.
Battle lines soon formed between lower-level engineers and upper-level NASA management, which is reminiscent of the cartoon Dilbert, but set in from Hell. Damage-prediction software called “Crater” was used to evaluate potential damage to the heat tiles, but those results – showing a real threat to the Shuttle – were downplayed or criticized. Upper NASA management also stymied engineers from making requests to the Department of Defense to have military satellites take pictures of Columbia’s wing. The Director of Missions Operations, for one, believed that if the Columbia was doomed, the crew would be better off not knowing, which is usually the type of ultra-complicated moral decision left to powers higher than “Director of Missions Operations.”
In all, this is the kind of book that should probably be required reading for any entity or organization that deals with risk-management and risk-tolerance.
***
Unfortunately, though, the high-throttle, novelistic, dialogue-laden style has its drawbacks. Chiefly, the authors – unintentionally or not – create false heroes and false villains. No one in NASA planned for Columbia to physically dissemble before our eyes. But when you read the middle portions of Comm Check, you instinctively divide every person into “good” and “bad” categories. The result is that a guy like Rodney Rocha, the division chief for structural engineering, comes across as prophet and hero for instantly recognizing the Shuttle’s mortal danger. Meanwhile, Linda Ham, the chair of the Mission Management Team, comes across as both ignorant and fatalistic: believing that the damage wasn’t serious, but if it was, shrugging her shoulders helplessly.
In real life, things are not nearly so stark, so black and white. The scales are unfairly tipped towards those shouting the warnings, because they’re the ones more likely to provide access to journalists. Later on, in a more sober section of the book, the authors actually seem to agree with the assessment of upper management: that nothing could have been done to save the Columbia. The astronauts were not equipped for a spacewalk and did not have the necessary tools to repair the heat tiles. Unlike Apollo 13, which had less processing power than the smartphone in your pocket, the Space Shuttle could not be MacGyvered. Furthermore, NASA couldn’t very well launch a second Shuttle that might not be safe to fly.
***
Comm Check ends with a final chapter on the future of the Shuttle Program. In 2004, when this book came out, that remained an open issue. Today, of course, it is moot. The Space Shuttle retired in 2011. The program has been relegated to a Toyota commercial, where a pickup truck drags the husk of Endeavor down the road. I’m not sure if that’s a fitting end or not, since the program is more memorable for its lethal failures than its achievements.
The real takeaway from Comm Check’s epilogue is the question of whether we should continue to launch people into space at all. Part of me wants to say no, of course not. At least not funded by the government. Space travel is a first-world luxury, inappropriate during times of slashed budgets and crumbling infrastructure and failing schools. Any space travel should be done with robots and with the sole purpose of ensuring that I continue to receive hundreds of television channels.
Another part of me mourns the idea that we would forgo this last frontier. It is not a rational feeling, based on economic realities. It’s just this sense that we lose something if we don’t continue to explore, and to explore at great risk.
May 9, 2014
Book has great structure and jumps around in time in a logical and compelling way. A good look at the crew and the slow motion management/budget trainwreck that led to another disaster. Disturbingly similar to Challenger accident.
I'll probably add "The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA" by Diane Vaughan as a follow-up. Comm Check describes her role on the CAIB - she's a sociologist who previously analyzed the dysfunctional management at NASA and its contractors in "Risky Technology".
I'll probably add "The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA" by Diane Vaughan as a follow-up. Comm Check describes her role on the CAIB - she's a sociologist who previously analyzed the dysfunctional management at NASA and its contractors in "Risky Technology".
April 10, 2022
> The meeting moved on without taking any formal action. Atlantis’ debris strike would pose no roadblock for Endeavour’s mission—just as foam never had held up a flight in the past. However, NASA would make sure its paperwork was in order. The hazard report would be looked over to be certain its wording more precisely reflected the nature of the foam threat.
> NASA’s public affairs staff churned out dozens of fact sheets, color brochures, and feature stories touting the scientific value of the research. But it was a tough sell. The experiments seemed second-tier to many outside observers. It was not that any one experiment represented demonstrably bad science. But given the half-billion-dollar cost of a shuttle flight, critics argued the price tag far outweighed the potential benefits. Even some in the shuttle program privately questioned the value of Columbia’s research.
> Columbia carried 13 rats, eight garden orb weaver spiders, five silkworms and three cocoons, four Medaka fish eggs, three carpenter bees, 15 harvester ants and an assortment of fish, mostly because students wanted to see how they would behave when weightless. One student experiment later attracted potshots from critics. Called “Fun with Urine,” the idea was to test the feasibility of urine-based paint as a possible way to redecorate future spacecraft, and thus stave off depression, on long-duration voyages.
> Crater analyses, like most of Boeing’s other shuttle production and operations tasks, had been done for years at the company’s Huntington Beach office. But responsibility for that and many other shuttle operations officially had moved from California to Houston earlier that month in an efficiency and cost-cutting move. As a result, Boeing engineer Paul Parker, who had been trained on Crater but had used the program only twice before, was assigned to help perform the analysis. Despite his inexperience, he knew enough about Crater to have concerns. The foam block that hit Columbia was estimated to have a volume of 1,200 cubic inches. That was at least 400 times greater than the largest foam cylinders used in impact tests to develop Crater.
> NASA engineers decided to simply remove the ramps and to install electric heaters to prevent ice buildups. The massive fittings that anchor the two struts holding the nose of the shuttle to the external tank—fittings that used to be buried inside the foam ramps—will be fully exposed on all future flights
> NASA’s public affairs staff churned out dozens of fact sheets, color brochures, and feature stories touting the scientific value of the research. But it was a tough sell. The experiments seemed second-tier to many outside observers. It was not that any one experiment represented demonstrably bad science. But given the half-billion-dollar cost of a shuttle flight, critics argued the price tag far outweighed the potential benefits. Even some in the shuttle program privately questioned the value of Columbia’s research.
> Columbia carried 13 rats, eight garden orb weaver spiders, five silkworms and three cocoons, four Medaka fish eggs, three carpenter bees, 15 harvester ants and an assortment of fish, mostly because students wanted to see how they would behave when weightless. One student experiment later attracted potshots from critics. Called “Fun with Urine,” the idea was to test the feasibility of urine-based paint as a possible way to redecorate future spacecraft, and thus stave off depression, on long-duration voyages.
> Crater analyses, like most of Boeing’s other shuttle production and operations tasks, had been done for years at the company’s Huntington Beach office. But responsibility for that and many other shuttle operations officially had moved from California to Houston earlier that month in an efficiency and cost-cutting move. As a result, Boeing engineer Paul Parker, who had been trained on Crater but had used the program only twice before, was assigned to help perform the analysis. Despite his inexperience, he knew enough about Crater to have concerns. The foam block that hit Columbia was estimated to have a volume of 1,200 cubic inches. That was at least 400 times greater than the largest foam cylinders used in impact tests to develop Crater.
> NASA engineers decided to simply remove the ramps and to install electric heaters to prevent ice buildups. The massive fittings that anchor the two struts holding the nose of the shuttle to the external tank—fittings that used to be buried inside the foam ramps—will be fully exposed on all future flights
January 20, 2019
On February 1, 2003, not long before it was scheduled to land, the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up over Texas and Louisiana. Seven NASA astronauts were killed and Shuttle Columbia was lost. Michael Cabbage and William Harwood, two long-time space journalists, wrote this book to chronicle this tragic event, how it happened, why it happened, and the results of the investigation that followed.
As with most tragic events, this one is absent a single cause. I thought Michael Cabbage and William Harwood did an admirable job explaining everything from the engineering dynamics of the space shuttle, NASA culture, the minute-by-minute events culminating in the loss of Columbia, and the life histories and personalities of Columbia's final crew. This is a very emotional and intense book. I believe it makes a most valuable contribution to history. It also points out the risks of manned space flight and exploration, as well as human error and shortcomings--some avoidable, and some not.
September 13, 2008
"Columbia, Houston, comm check..."
August 5, 2017
Would've been 5 stars but they picked a very annoying font, first time in my life I have been bothered by that. Great book.
April 3, 2018
Outstanding and possibly the best book detailing what happened to Columbia. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in our space shuttle program, especially COLUMBIA and CHALLENGER.
June 8, 2024
Don't read this book if you're looking for the human interest angle. Read it if you're an engineer or think like one. This is a well-researched and highly detailed account of an unnecessary tragedy. NASA had known about the foam problem for years; it nearly destroyed Atlantis. Then after Columbia was struck, NASA sat on their hands and said, "Well, there's nothing we can do about it anyway." What a stark contrast to the scrappy and brash organization that saved Apollo 13. What an enormous disappointment.
December 4, 2016
Detailed look at a tragic space incident
A clear, organized look at how the Columbia shuttle accident was investigated and the layers of issues it uncovered in NASA and the shuttle program.
A clear, organized look at how the Columbia shuttle accident was investigated and the layers of issues it uncovered in NASA and the shuttle program.
Read
April 24, 2008Life stories of the seven brave astronauts of the crew of STS-107, and the story of the tragic mission.
October 11, 2010
Excellent detail about the end of the shuttle Columbia and the shuttle program in general.
August 8, 2020
I finished reading "Comm Check" while in the waiting room at the dentist. Cabbage did an excellent job of describing what was happening at the time from three perspectives: mission ground control in Florida, amateur space enthusiasts observing the shuttle breaking apart, and good conjecture on what the astronauts, particularly Husband and McCool, were likely seeing and thinking. The truly heartbreaking part of the book was the end analysis after they were able to demonstrate that the foam strike could, indeed, blow a hole in the RCC tiles. Cabbage does a second-by-second breakdown of what was going on in the vehicle according to telemetry.
What is interesting is that because Columbia was the first orbiter to be launched, it was much heavier than the other four. One of the reasons was that it was outfitted with more sensors and was the ONLY shuttle with a flight data recorders (akin to a "black box," albeit with a different name) because it was so experimental. The recorder (and, incidentally, a video that the astronauts recorded during early reentry) were found quite by accident, and the recorder was miraculously undamaged. This recorded data that was not transmitted back to mission control during flight. Of particular note: one of the flight sticks was moved enough that it could have overrode the autopilot (though McCool was the "pilot" it is the commander that has flight responsibility, but nearly 100% of the flight is automated), though it is unclear if it was hands on the stick to move it or if it was moved as they were responding to the clearly developing emergency as the left wing was ripped away. It is very likely that when the crew compartment separated from the fuselage that the crew was A) alive and B) aware. They likely spent somewhere between 38 seconds and several minutes knowing they were doomed.
Cabbage--as did McConnell and Richard Feynman (the dude who discovered the o-ring problem as cause on
Challenger using ice water and $2 in parts)--stated that NASA administration became, in a word, arrogant and that while the proximate cause of the shuttle was the foam strike, the root cause was disregard for safety and quality. The flight manifest was king and seven good people perished as a result.
What is interesting is that because Columbia was the first orbiter to be launched, it was much heavier than the other four. One of the reasons was that it was outfitted with more sensors and was the ONLY shuttle with a flight data recorders (akin to a "black box," albeit with a different name) because it was so experimental. The recorder (and, incidentally, a video that the astronauts recorded during early reentry) were found quite by accident, and the recorder was miraculously undamaged. This recorded data that was not transmitted back to mission control during flight. Of particular note: one of the flight sticks was moved enough that it could have overrode the autopilot (though McCool was the "pilot" it is the commander that has flight responsibility, but nearly 100% of the flight is automated), though it is unclear if it was hands on the stick to move it or if it was moved as they were responding to the clearly developing emergency as the left wing was ripped away. It is very likely that when the crew compartment separated from the fuselage that the crew was A) alive and B) aware. They likely spent somewhere between 38 seconds and several minutes knowing they were doomed.
Cabbage--as did McConnell and Richard Feynman (the dude who discovered the o-ring problem as cause on
Challenger using ice water and $2 in parts)--stated that NASA administration became, in a word, arrogant and that while the proximate cause of the shuttle was the foam strike, the root cause was disregard for safety and quality. The flight manifest was king and seven good people perished as a result.
December 12, 2019
This is a fantastic read. It covers everything from the background of the astronauts, the mechanics of the space shuttle, the culture at NASA, the economics and politics involved in space travel right the way through to the cause of the tragic accident. If you’ve an interest in space travel, corporate culture, the ethics of pushing the boundaries of human exploration or crash investigations then this is well worth picking up.
October 7, 2018
Wow. This is detailed and condensed to meet my mechanical mind.
I love stories that document mechanical facts in detail for nerds with what happened here as their top priority. I really enjoyed it.
I love stories that document mechanical facts in detail for nerds with what happened here as their top priority. I really enjoyed it.
March 26, 2021
Smooth read, very detailed account.
I enjoyed the book from start to finish. Heart pounding at times, eerie at times...makes you think. Gives one a new understanding of what happened and why.
I enjoyed the book from start to finish. Heart pounding at times, eerie at times...makes you think. Gives one a new understanding of what happened and why.
February 11, 2019
Left me angry.
Enjoyable and we'll written, but left me feeling a bit angry that the crew of Columbia had to die in order for NASA to realize there were fundamental process and management
problems.
Enjoyable and we'll written, but left me feeling a bit angry that the crew of Columbia had to die in order for NASA to realize there were fundamental process and management
problems.
December 28, 2019
an account of the Colombia disaster.
Read
March 31, 2020Mao's Last Dancer
Together Alone
Comm Check
A Mighty Heart
Together Alone
Comm Check
A Mighty Heart
July 13, 2021
Detailed, heartbreaking account of a tragedy. I can't really say I "enjoyed" it, given the subject matter, but it was engrossing.
March 19, 2023
Good book
Well worth the time in reliving the Columbia disaster. We must continue on in our exploration of the heavens. On to Mars!
Well worth the time in reliving the Columbia disaster. We must continue on in our exploration of the heavens. On to Mars!
January 24, 2025
Interesting and revealing account of Columbia’s life
October 5, 2016
Thorough, compelling analysis of the technical issues surrounding the Columbia disaster, the human contribution and the subsequent report on the accident. It also puts the accident within the context of NASA's space programme and references Diane Vaughan's work on the management culture at NASA. It also references the fact that many engineering and safety positions have been contracted to Boeing and Lockheed Martin with zero savings, but a 42% reduction in jobs.
February 10, 2022
A very sobering look at just how truly dangerous space flight is.
The bravery and determination of the astronauts who flew the first shuttle mission after the
Columbia disaster is just mind blowing.
The bravery and determination of the astronauts who flew the first shuttle mission after the
Columbia disaster is just mind blowing.
February 12, 2014
I was drawn to Comm Check to learn what went wrong with Columbia.
Cabbage provides a detailed, and somewhat technical explanation of what went wrong and why the shuttle was doomed after the launch incident.
He addresses the what if's...and there were plenty of them after the incident. Could the astronauts have been rescued? Could a different entry angle have saved them?
Towards the end of the book a question that was of interest to me is brought up. Was there a real, scientific need for "manned" space travel? As the author quotes Carl Sagan as saying that the moment you put human aboard any space mission, the top priority changes from doing science to returning those people alive.
As a reader one aspect that still puzzles and rankles is how is it that in 2003, NASA did not still have a program in place to monitor the launch with high quality cameras around the launch pad. There is a specific mention of fuzzy, out of focus cameras in the book. It also happened to be an important point covered by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board as a basic minimum requirement to fly the shuttle again.
This is a great book to gift to anyone in quality assurance, irrespective of the industry they work in.
Cabbage provides a detailed, and somewhat technical explanation of what went wrong and why the shuttle was doomed after the launch incident.
He addresses the what if's...and there were plenty of them after the incident. Could the astronauts have been rescued? Could a different entry angle have saved them?
Towards the end of the book a question that was of interest to me is brought up. Was there a real, scientific need for "manned" space travel? As the author quotes Carl Sagan as saying that the moment you put human aboard any space mission, the top priority changes from doing science to returning those people alive.
As a reader one aspect that still puzzles and rankles is how is it that in 2003, NASA did not still have a program in place to monitor the launch with high quality cameras around the launch pad. There is a specific mention of fuzzy, out of focus cameras in the book. It also happened to be an important point covered by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board as a basic minimum requirement to fly the shuttle again.
This is a great book to gift to anyone in quality assurance, irrespective of the industry they work in.
May 7, 2015
This book is a solid re-telling of the story of the final flight of the space shuttle Columbia and the investigation afterward. The book came out in 2004, roughly a year after the accident.
It's been more than 12 years since the Columbia disaster and I was motivated to re-read this book to see if it had held up very well. After all it's been four or five years since the space shuttles were retired. The book holds up very well - the authors painstakingly recreate the pressure within NASA to launch Columbia on time, despite the evidence of foam strikes on earlier missions. We meet the crew and also the engineers and managers who were involved in the analysis of the foam strike on Columbia's left wing. A thorough discussion of how the foam strike caused the destruction of the orbiter during reentry is provided. And finally, the accident investigation is discussed and the final report is examined. Sadly, many of the institutional causes of the accident are very similar to the problems that led to the loss of the Challenger in 1986.
If you are interested in the history of manned space exploration, I think you will enjoy this book.
It's been more than 12 years since the Columbia disaster and I was motivated to re-read this book to see if it had held up very well. After all it's been four or five years since the space shuttles were retired. The book holds up very well - the authors painstakingly recreate the pressure within NASA to launch Columbia on time, despite the evidence of foam strikes on earlier missions. We meet the crew and also the engineers and managers who were involved in the analysis of the foam strike on Columbia's left wing. A thorough discussion of how the foam strike caused the destruction of the orbiter during reentry is provided. And finally, the accident investigation is discussed and the final report is examined. Sadly, many of the institutional causes of the accident are very similar to the problems that led to the loss of the Challenger in 1986.
If you are interested in the history of manned space exploration, I think you will enjoy this book.
July 30, 2019
The story of one of the worst space disasters. The book is really good. The emotions, drama, mistakes, slips etc. have all been captured. A very good narration of emotional series of events which hold the reader. There could have been few additions to the structure of the book like a hierarchy chart or table to know which official stood where in the chain of command. But, still, this book is a fine piece of literature and gets you emotional.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 9, 2013
This is an incredibly sad account of the loss of the space shuttle Columbia and the deaths of its crew members that led to the end of the shuttle program.
Read
April 15, 2017good
April 30, 2017
Amazingly Insightful
Outstanding and unflinching look at the Columbia accident, its investigation report, and many related issues. Reading about the indecision and infighting that occurred on the ground while Columbia and crew were on orbit and uninformed evoked some pretty strong emotions. An excellent high level look at how an accident investigation board functions and what goes into the report.
Outstanding and unflinching look at the Columbia accident, its investigation report, and many related issues. Reading about the indecision and infighting that occurred on the ground while Columbia and crew were on orbit and uninformed evoked some pretty strong emotions. An excellent high level look at how an accident investigation board functions and what goes into the report.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews